to show what a fatal
error she had made in the purchase of some ribbons.

Barbara held them first in one light and then in another, and at length
shook her head over them in piteous despair and asked:

"How _could_ you so utterly mistake both color and quality?"

"Why, my dear, I bought them by lamplight! and, besides, it was an
auction and I was excited."

"Yes," said Barbara, and took a long breath. "I know how that is."

* * * * *

Down in town two commercial travelers, one of whom we have met before,
took an after-breakfast saunter.

"She was coming," said the one we remember, "to New England. I didn't
know where or for what, and I don't know yet; but when my house said,
'Old boy, we'd like to promote you, just say what you want!' says I,
'Let the salary stand as it is, only change my district; gimme New
England!'"

"That's the college," he continued, as they came up into Elm Street.
"Those are the students, just coming out of the chapel: 'sweet girl
graduates,' as Shakespeare calls them."

He clutched his companion's arm. Their eyes rested on one of the
dispersing throng, who came last and alone, with a slow step and
manifestly under some burdensome preoccupation, through the high iron
gateway of the campus. She passed them with drooping eyelashes and
walked in the same tardy pace before them. Presently she turned from the
sidewalk, crossed a small grassplot, and stood on the doorstep with her
hand on the latch while they went by.

"Her?" said the one who thought he had quoted Shakespeare, "of course
it's her; who else could it be? Ah, hmm! 'so near and yet so far!' Tom,
I believe in heaven when I look at that girl--heaven and holiness! I
read Taylor's 'Holy Living' when a boy!"

Presently they returned and passed again. She was still standing at the
door. A few steps away the speaker looked over his shoulder and moaned:

"Not a glimpse of me does she get! There, she's gone in; but sure's you
live she didn't want to!" They walked on. In front of their hotel he
clutched his companion again. A young man of commanding figure stood
near, deeply immersed in a telegram. The drummer whispered an oath of
surprise.

"That's him now! the young millionaire she rejected on the trip we all
made together! What's he here for?--George! he looks as worried as her!"

"How do you know she rejected him?"

"How do--Now, look here! If I didn't know it do you s'pose I'd say so?
Well, then